At the time, President Dawda Jawara was in the United Kingdom attending the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

The government explained the incident as a solitary act of mutiny, but still invoked the 1965 common defence agreement with Senegal, leading to the deployment of 150 troops on a joint training exercise called 'Operation Foday Kabba I' for one week.

As early as July 1980, the Libyans had been accused of providing military training to Gambians who had been recruited by Senegalese rebel leader, Sheikh Ahmed Niasse of Kaolack.

[3] The background for the rebels involved in the attempted coup came from the Gambia Socialist Revolutionary Party (GSRP), founded in early 1980 by Gibril L. George, a former businessman.

They spoke of "Victory for the Gambian revolutionary struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat and the leadership of a Marxist-Leninist party" and of "Death to neocolonialism, racism and fascism.

The plotters waited until President Dawda Jawara was out of the country to attend the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in London before launching the coup d'état.